


Falling Together

by Sornettes (CatchingTomorrow)



Series: Le meilleur temps de notre vie [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Lonely souls, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:29:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatchingTomorrow/pseuds/Sornettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Marius chooses Cosette one time too many, Éponine finds comfort in someone she didn't entirely expect. And thus begins a broken sort of friendship between two broken sorts of people that doesn't fix anything, but it's no fun to drink alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Together

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic for the Les Mis fandom... I'm kind of nervous about posting this. It's a modern AU because I still haven't finished the book so I don't trust myself to get the original setting right yet. The song is Flaws by Bastille. So... enjoy! I hope it isn't too depressing.

_When all of your flaws and all of my flaws_

_Are laid out one by one_

_A wonderful part of the mess that we made_

_We pick ourselves undone_

 

He didn't come.

They'd planned to have lunch together today. It was supposed to be an apology. Making up for spending so much time with his new girlfriend and so little with her. She had sat there on her own, picking crumbs out of the bread basket, assuring the waitresses that her friend was coming until they started to mutter amongst themselves and shoot her pitying glances and she couldn't bear to wait there any longer.

He forgot. That's all. Marius is busy these days. He probably just lost track of time. That's all it is.

She really shouldn't be in tears over something that simple.

 _Calm down_ , her mind tells her as she runs up the winding staircase that forms the spine of their hall of residence. _It's just lunch_. One floor. _You can reschedule._ Two floors. _It's not a big deal_. Three floors. _Don't you dare cry_. Four floors. _Not yet_. Saltwater swims and stings like acid behind her eyes as she hurries along the top floor corridor, obscuring her vision, clouding her mind. Other students stare at her as she passes but she ignores them. She just needs to be alone. She turns a corner, opens a door marked 'NO ENTRY' and runs up the staircase it conceals, emerging out onto the roof.

She would've been able to see most of central Paris from here if her eyes weren't so blurred. She collapses against the wall of an air conditioning vent and sinks to the ground, sinks, keeps sinking until she's nothing but a sobbing, drowning mess on the concrete.

A voice says, "It's Éponine, isn't it?" and she almost chokes on her own tears.

She wipes her eyes clear with her sleeve and looks up. She isn't alone. The voice belongs to Grantaire of all people, the scruffy kid in the group Marius hangs out with who always seems to be at least half drunk. Messy, dishevelled Grantaire, sitting ten feet away from her with his tie undone and a bottle in his hand. She tries to sniff, but it comes out as more of a wet snort. "What are you doing up here?"

He shrugs. "Enjoying some alone time. Why the tears?"

"I... I was supposed to be having lunch with a friend... with Marius. He never showed." Said out loud, she's painfully aware of how minor this sounds. "Not just that," she tries again. "I waited at the café for an hour. And this isn't the first... it's just... he's..."

Miraculously, there's something like understanding on his face. He shifts closer and holds out the bottle. "Want some?"

Éponine shakes her head.

"Go on. No offence, but you look like you need this even more than I do."

...Maybe he's right. And what's the harm, really? She can feel regret and desperation and sheer terrified loneliness welling up in her, clawing at the inside of her skin, and she's known all along that something was going to have to give. Dulling her senses and fogging her brain honestly doesn't sound like such a bad idea right now. She takes the bottle from him and rubs the mouth with her sleeve before taking a deep swallow; it tastes disgusting and burns her throat as it goes down. She chokes and thrusts the bottle back at Grantaire, who pats her on the back as she coughs and splutters. "What... what the hell is that?"

He grins. "Absinthe. More?"

 

_All of your flaws and all of my flaws_

_They lie there hand in hand_

_Ones we've inherited, ones that we learned_

_They pass from man to man_

 

Éponine has drunk too much before, but only at parties and clubs where the smoke, music and flashing, dizzying lights make even the most sober head spin, and she's never ventured far past tipsy. The various circumstances of her childhood have taught her the value of being the only person in the room with a clear head. But now she's drunk, truly and properly, and her surroundings aren't spinning at all. The rooftop is silent and still and reality feels like Parisian inner city smog on a summer day, and it occurs to her that this is Grantaire's world.

"So Marius didn't have lunch with you," he says lazily. His voice sounds very distant and very close at the same time, both hazy and intense, like sound over a crackling radio, and she can't work out whether it's sarcastic or not. "The bastard. Did he give you a good reason for this unforgivable slight against your honour?"

She shakes her head. "He just said he couldn't come. And I'm not... slighted. My honour's fine. I was just... I was expecting him to be there, is all. I shouldn't have been so stupid in the first place."

"I sense some bottled-up issues. Let them out, go ahead. No-one can hear you up here."

"It's like he doesn't even care about me any more," she blurts. "I'm always there for him. I never let him down. But as soon as he starts dating _Cosette_ , I'm just a sideshow. I'm on the periphery when before I thought... I..."

"You thought you might end up the star performer."

It's funny. Usually any comments that come close to the truth of her feelings for Marius are chased away with flat-out denial and defensive retorts, but suddenly she's just too tired to pretend any more. She sighs and deflates, sinking down against the wall. "I'm always there for him," she repeats, because really, what else does he want from her? "He barely even _knows_ her. I'm the one that's been there this whole time and he never once looked at me like he looks at her. What is it about me that's so undesirable? What does she have that I don't?"

Tears are swimming in her eyes again. She blinks them away and holds her hand out for the bottle. He passes it over wordlessly and she drains the last dregs from the bottom. "It's empty," she says, glaring at it as though it's betrayed her.

"Don't worry." He shifts over and reaches for a panel that she assumed led to some kind of ventilation shaft. Whether it's built like that or he's already taken out the screws she doesn't know, but it comes away easily and the compartment inside is full of glass bottles. "This isn't the first time I've been up here."

 

_There's a hole in my soul_

_I can't fill it, I can't fill it_

_There's a hole in my soul_

_Can you fill it? Can you fill it?_

 

Éponine lies on her bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering whether or not she can convince herself that she's sick enough to skip her lecture this afternoon. She feels fine, but it's amazing what you can make yourself believe when you put your mind to it.

Her roommate is lying on the floor with a half-written essay and her class notebooks. Éponine is often jealous of Musichetta. She's gorgeous, for one thing: Italian or Spanish maybe (she's never gotten around to asking) with voluminous dark hair, eyes so huge you could get lost in them and never find your way back out again, and skin that whispers of long evenings on sunny Mediterranean beaches. In contast, Éponine is skinny, pale and stringy-haired, her appearance more overcast Parisian suburbs where the rain is ever-present and acidic and the grey pavements dull the sparkle in her eyes.

"I'm just saying," continues Musichetta, her perfect lips sucking on the end of her pen, "you should look on the bright side. You don't have to worry about taking care of anyone. Not that my situation doesn't have its perks," a corner of her mouth twitches upwards as though she's laughing at an inside joke shared with herself, "but you're free to do whatever the hell you want. With whoever the hell you want. You should be happy about that. It's not like boys are entirely low-maintenance anyway. Did I tell you about the time when Bossuet-"

Her phone beeps. She takes it out of her pocket, flips it open and sighs. "I have to go. Joly reckons he's got cholera again. If anyone thought getting that boy a medical degree would calm him down, they were wrong. He only knows how to recognise even more symptoms now. He's lucky I love him so much."

Musichetta has two boyfriends. Joly and Bossuet are friends who both fell in love with her at the same time. She couldn't choose between them. They worked something out.

Some people have all the luck.

There's a knock on the door as Musichetta collects her bag and she passes Marius on the way out. He pokes his head inside and says sheepishly, "Éponine?"

She scrambles to her feet, taken by surprise. "Marius!"

He stares at the floor, looking somewhat ashamed of himself. "I came to apologise. I'm really sorry about skipping lunch yesterday, 'Ponine. I meant to text you, but... I forgot. I was getting ready to go and meet you but then Cosette needed help with this project of hers and I just got carried away." He gazes up at her, and how could she ever stay angry with those eyes? "Can you forgive me?"

It would be so easy to shift the blame seamlessly to Cosette, to hate her for stealing Marius and accuse her of using his love for her to manipulate him, but she's known Cosette since childhood and doubts there's a single person on campus less manipulative than her. Éponine can't imagine her doing anything out of spite. The truth is that she's just as lovestruck and naïve as Marius is; she doesn't know of Éponine's feelings and she didn't know she was interrupting their plans. She's floating through life blissful and carefree as God smiles fondly down at her and hands her everything Éponine wants.

"It's fine," she says. "Don't worry about it. We can have lunch another day."

Marius's face breaks into a relieved smile and her heart constricts in her chest. "Thanks 'Ponine, I knew you'd understand." He gathers her into a tight hug that sends a warm flush through every inch of her body, and damn him, he really has no idea what he's doing to her, does he? "How about Tuesday?"

"Why Tuesday?"

"Because neither of us have class Tuesday afternoon and, well... I was going to ask if you could help me with something afterwards."

It's a small reminder that he still values her. That she hasn't been abandoned. He's asking for her help, not Cosette's, and it's all she can do not to hug him again and never let go. She smiles up at him and says, "Of course, anything."

His face brightens. "Brilliant! It's Cosette's birthday in two weeks and I've been searching but I have no idea what to get her. It'd be really helpful to have a girl's opinion and besides, you're good at this sort of thing, aren't you?" He gives her another squeeze, but this time she's numb all over. "I knew I could count on you. I have to go now, I was just stopping by before my lecture starts. Don't you have one too this afternoon?"

The words are heavy on her tongue. "Yeah. I do. But... I'm not going. I feel sick."

"Oh," he says, suddenly concerned. "I didn't realise. I'm sorry for making you get up. You should go back to bed. Do you want me to bring you anything?"

She shakes her head. "Thanks, but I'll be fine. I just need to rest."

"Okay. See you later, then."

He shuts the door behind him and Éponine waits until she hears his footsteps disappear down the staircase before making a beeline for Grantaire's dormitory.

 

_You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve_

_And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground_

_Dig them up; let's finish what we started_

_Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned_

 

Grantaire's roommate is in. Grantaire's roommate is never in. He doesn't see the point of sitting around doing nothing; he's always either with his friends (his _allies_ ), off working on one of his causes or cramming in the library for tests he ignored in favour of said causes, returning to the dormitory at some obscene hour of the night to crash down onto his bed before rising again at another equally obscene hour of the morning. But today when she pushes open the door, the first thing she sees is Enjolras sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by posters, leaflets and empty coffee cups. He barely seems to notice her come in. There are dark shadows under his eyes and his blond hair is untidy, as though he's run his fingers through it a few too many times.

"Grantaire, nobody asked for your input," he snaps as she closes the door behind her. "I'm trying to concentrate. If you're going to stay here then for the love of God be _quiet_."

Grantaire shrugs noncommittally, keeping his options open. He's sitting on his bed, which is really the only place left because Enjolras has commandeered all the chairs and flat surfaces to hold stacks of paper. "What's going on?" she asks him. "Project due?"

It's Grantaire who snorts a laugh and says, "Like hell. He's organising a protest."

"A protest? About what?"

"Do you realise," starts Enjolras, and Éponine sees from the light blazing in his eyes that now she's done it, "how many basic freedoms our government denies us, even today? They distract us with electronics and reality TV to trick us into thinking we're free when in fact we're hardly better off now than we were under the monarchy. This so-called 'democracy' is-"

"Enjolras, Éponine doesn't' want to hear about-"

"I thought I told you to shut _up_!" He grabs one of the paper cups, downs the contents and throws it across the room into the wastepaper basket. "I can't focus with you here! If you want to be helpful then go and get me another coffee."

Grantaire sighs and pushes himself to his feet. Éponine, left with a choice between him and the half-hysterical mess now swearing under his breath and flipping through the pages of two notebooks at once, follows him quietly out of the room. The corridor's light seems bright after the half-darkness of the dormitory.

"Why do you let him talk to you like that?" she asks, once they're definitely out of earshot. "You live there too. He can't just order you out."

He shrugs. "I don't think he's slept in about forty-eight hours. Sleep deprivation makes him touchy and I was asking for it. Word of advice, don't suggest slogans to him unless you're going to be serious about it."

"But even so, he shouldn't be so rude to you."

"Since when did you become an authority on how I should or shouldn't be treated?" He shakes his head and nudges her with his elbow. The gesture is surprisingly friendly. "Honestly, don't worry about it."

She doesn't mention Enjolras again as they climb down the staircase side by side, floor after floor after floor.

The only café on campus - aside from the cafeteria, which, in Éponine's opinion, does not count - is right next to their hall of residence. It's called the Café Musain and it's usually the favourite haunt of Enjolras, Grantaire, Marius and their allies, but this afternoon it stands almost empty. The woman behind the till looks up as they come in.

Grantaire leans against the counter, gives her an easy smile and checks his watch. "One double-shot soy cappucchino with whipped cream and two sugars if you please, madame. To go."

Éponine stares at him as the woman bustles off towards the coffee machine. "That was very specific."

He shrugs again. "It's simple, really. He always drinks cappucchinos on Saturdays. Soy milk because it's summer. If he's been awake for more than twenty-four hours you make it a double-shot, if it's after four in the afternoon he wants whipped cream, then I add one sugar for each degree of how pissed off he is at me. There's a scale from one to four."

Grantaire waits as the woman makes the coffee in a portable cup, presses a lid on top and hands it over. He pays her and they leave without another word.

Back in the dormitory, Enjolras is scribbling madly across the top of one of the leaflets in a loopy, sprawling hand that could have been quite fancy if it wasn't completely incomprehensible. He glances up as Grantaire puts the coffee down next to him. "Thanks. Now isn't there something else you can go off and do? I need to think of a good slogan and I can't work with you sitting here distracting me."

"Fine," says Grantaire. "You'll have to get your coffee yourself then, or find someone else and tell them your last slave died of neglect."

"Like you care," snorts Enjolras. "If you're not going to help then get lost."

Grantaire straightens and heads for the door, just as Éponine says, "What about 'French Revolution'?"

Enjolras's pen stops moving. He raises his eyes slowly to meet hers. "French Revolution..." he mutters, rolling the words around his mouth, tasting them. "Yes... that's not bad. I could work with that. Thank you, Éponine." He bows his head to her politely, then shoots a disapproving look at Grantaire. "I could use more people like you around here."

Grantaire stops with his hand on the doorknob. He stands there for several seconds, quite still, then turns and picks a path back through the scattered paper to his bed. There's something reckless about his stride, as though he could kick over a stack of posters, kick anything, and not care in the slightest, but all Enjolras's hard work remains untouched as he drops to his knees, reaches an arm under his bed and pulls out a bottle of whisky. "Come on," he says, pulling her out of the door behind him. "I need a drink."

And Éponine understands.

 

_All of your flaws and all of my flaws_

_When they have been exhumed_

_We'll see that we need them to be who we are_

_Without them we'd be doomed_

 

That's the last time she ever drowns her sorrows with Grantaire. So is Tuesday evening, once she's helped Marius pick out an exquisite pearl necklace that's worth almost as much as the academic scholarship paying for her to come to this university. And so is the Friday after that when she overhears Cosette telling her friends that she knows she's probably too young to be saying this, but she's certain that Marius Pontmercy is her soulmate. Each time she declares loudly and drunkenly to Grantaire that she's never doing this again, and each time he laughs and tells her he'll remember that for next time.

"I mean it," she says. They're sitting on the floor of his dormitory in the half-light of a summer evening behind drawn curtains. Enjolras has cleared away his mess so thoroughly the room is now almost pristine, which makes an odd contrast to its inhabitant's scruffy hair and crumpled, half-buttoned shirt. "This isn't like me. I don't... I don't _do_ stuff like this."

Grantaire takes a long gulp and hands the bottle back to her. She doesn't know what it is they're drinking. It's strong-tasting and makes her head ache and she's past caring. "Stuff like what?"

"Like _this_." She gestures to the dormitory at large. "Like sit around and drink God knows what with people like you."

He laughs. It's rough like sandpaper but warm as well, and she clings to it for comfort. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"'S not a compliment. I don't know why I like you."

"If it's any help, I don't know why I like you either."

Because they can sit together in shared misery, each knowing that the other understands at least some small part of what they can never say out loud. Because they feel a strange kind of broken-hearted camaraderie. Because they both know how it feels to be beyond repair.

She drinks another mouthful, pulls a face and holds the bottle up to inspect it. "Coping mechanism," she says. "That's what this is."

There's something melancholy in his smile. "And is it helping you cope?"

She doesn't know, but the mist in her head is making it harder to focus on thoughts of Marius and Cosette, of her own desperate loneliness, of anything other than the taste of the spirits in her mouth and Grantaire's voice in her ear. "You're dragging me down with you," she says quietly.

He sighs and leans back against the bed, staring at the opposite wall with eyes swimming in and out of focus. "We're both falling, ma'moiselle. No-one's going to catch us. We either hit rock bottom alone or together. Whichever you prefer."

For one odd little moment she wonders if it wouldn't be a good idea to fall in love with him. It would solve all of their problems. Two lonely hearts finding solace in one another, each cancelling the other out, setting the universe to rights. He's not bad looking, in his own way, and she squints through the haze of alcohol and impossibility to try to imagine him all cleaned up with a haircut and something nice to wear. And it isn't like she hasn't seen him with girls before; only the occasional one night stand, granted, when he's too drunk to remember his own name let alone who they are in the morning, but the fact is there. They could wedge each other into the voids inside themselves and maybe they would almost fit, maybe if they didn't look too closely they could believe everything was how it should be.

It's this drunken logic that causes her to put the bottle down, lean across and kiss him. He kisses her back, just for a moment. She doesn't know why. All she knows is that if she shuts her eyes tight and ignores the fact that his hair is curly, his jaw is too wide and he smells all wrong, she can almost pretend he's Marius. But then he pushes her gently away and looks her in the eye just long enough for her to remember who he's not before picking the bottle back up and burying himself in it.

Éponine stares at the carpet and wonders whether, if she could make herself feel like Enjolras, that would've turned out differently.

 

_There's a hole in my soul_

_I can't fill it, I can't fill it_

_There's a hole in my soul_

_Can you fill it? Can you fill it?_

 

"Joly says you've been spending a lot of time with Grantaire recently," says Musichetta one afternoon in their dorm room, and her casual tone is betrayed by the sudden flicker of concerned interest in her eyes. "I never knew you two were close."

"We aren't," she says, then corrects herself. "We weren't. I don't know, we just... have a lot in common."

"I never knew he was into the whole dating thing."

"He isn't. We just hang out sometimes, that's all."

"Hmm." Musichetta crosses those legs of hers, the ones like mile-long strips of Italian seaside. Éponine is sure Marius would've noticed her by now if she had legs like those. "Even so, I'd be careful if I were you. Grantaire's a good kid but I wouldn't exactly say he's a good influence, if you know what I mean."

Éponine stares blankly at the study notes in front of her and clicks the nib of her pen in and out, in and out, in and out. "I'll keep that in mind."

She keeps that in mind right up until a search for research materials for her thesis paper takes her right to the dustiest, emptiest back corner of the library, where a Pontmercy and a Fauchelevent are enjoying some alone time in each other's company, and it occurs to her that bad or not, his influence is the only thing she has any more.

She's back on the roof again in minutes flat. She feels empty and full at the same time, buzzing all over with cold dread and burning horror. Her head is spinning even though she's sober as she's ever been, though she intends to change that fact as soon as possible. She's on her hands and knees, finding the panel hiding Grantaire's stash and ripping it away, almost sending it spinning off the rooftop. She doesn't care what's in the bottle she grabs. It could be cyanide and she wouldn't care, just so long as it helped her wash away the images from behind her eyelids like dirt from an open wound.

 

_You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve_

_And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground_

_Dig them up; let's finish what we started_

_Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned_

 

The sky is dark. Stars are twinkling unevenly down at her, comforting her, mocking her. Her cheeks are wet but she doesn't remember crying. The wind nips at her arms and shoulders and the grit digs into her fingertips, but that's in another world. Separate. She's floating, falling, drowning in a void of night sky and Parisian streetlights.

Maybe she'll sleep up here tonight. She might catch a cold but really, the time for thinking about consequences passed her by hours ago. She can barely see straight, let alone walk straight, and the last time she tried to push herself to her feet she toppled over like a sack of potatoes balanced on a needle and lay there on the concrete, staring up at the sky and wondering if she'll ever be able to put herself back together again.

She's still lying there when a face swims into her field of vision and a voice from very far away says, "Éponine? Are you okay?"

It's Grantaire. Éponine makes a noise of assent and tries to struggle to her feet but doesn't quite make it. He looks around at the remnants of his stash scattered across the roof and sighs. "What have you done?"

He doesn't say it like it's her fault. It's the world that did this to her. He understands that better than anyone.

"Come on." Colours rush, her equilibrium spins out of control, and when everything comes back into focus she's been hoisted bridal-style into his arms. "You can't sleep it off out here."

He opens the door with his foot and twists sideways to avoid whacking her head against the doorframe, then the world dissolves into a whirl of colour and light until everything resolves itself into a soft mattress and a pillow under her head. Grantaire pulls the blankets up over her. Musichetta's voice says, "What's going on? What's wrong with her?"

"She's fine," says Grantaire, but they both know it's a lie. "Just make sure she drinks lots of water when she wakes up. Maybe an aspirin or two wouldn't go amiss either if you've got them, tomorrow morning's not going to be pretty. Oh, and don't open the curtains when the sun's up, I swear to God. I hate it when Enjol- when people do that. Sleep tight."

Then he's gone. Maybe she feels a sudden pang of loss, like a child losing their security blanket or an addict deprived of a fix, or maybe she's just really, really drunk. Éponine curls into a ball under the duvet and closes her eyes.

They're both ruined beyond repair. Neither of them can heal the other and they know this, there are no delusions in their patchwork shambles of a relationship, but if they can't have the whole of someone else, maybe they can find solace in the pieces of another. He can never catch her. She can never catch him. But at the very least, they can fall together.

And maybe she can pretend that that's enough.

 

_All of your flaws and all of my flaws_

_Are laid out one by one_

_Look at the wonderful mess that we made_

 

_We pick ourselves undone._


End file.
